Rijiju spurns Congress offer

A sitting BJP Lok Sabha member on Saturday said he had spurned Congress ticket in the coming elections to burst the myth that only ruling party candidates could win in the tribal border state and performance did not matter.

Addressing a press conference in Itanagar, Kiren Rijiju, who was re-nominated by BJP from Arunachal West parliamentary seat, said he could easily get elected on a ruling Congress ticket offered to him openly at a function by no less than Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu some time ago when all the nine opposition BJP mlas had defected to the Congress fold.

But he preferred to remain in BJP as "I feel only becoming MP should not be the sole objective", he said.

"I may feel lonely losing all the party MLAs to Congress but I still feel that I should fight the system to bring about a change in the politics in the state. If I succeed it will be a historical occasion as influence of money and muscle power to control the political authority will be reduced and performances will be counted," he said.

Rijiju was selected among the five best MPs on the opposition bench chosen by Lok Sabha members cutting across party lines in a recent survey done by a national English daily. He was also chosen as the best young MP by a national English fortnightly.